"Euro-American ways of thinking were dominated by the ideas of
civilization and savagery. Carrying associations of both nobility and violence,
savagery was mankind's childhood, a starting stage in which society drew
its shape and order from nature. Savagery meant hunting and gathering,
not agriculture; common ownership, not individual property owning; pagan
superstition, not Christianity; spoken language, not literacy; emotion,
not reason. Savagery had its charms but was fated to yield before the higher
stage of civilization represented by white Americans. Indians possessed
the land and...Euro-Americans wanted it. ...[Euro-Americans felt] that...Indians
were not using the land properly. Relying on hunting and gathering, savagery
neglected the land's true potential and kept out those who could put it
to proper use. A sparse Indian population wasted the resources that could
support a dense white population."